30 THE HUMAN SIDE OF PLANTS 
actually touch them with their staffs thinking the 
plants an ill or lazy animal! 
Perhaps one of the most unusual instances of 
real mimicry is found among castor-oil beans. 
They assume both the shape and the colour of the 
coccinella beetles, and so escape the attention of 
graminivorous birds which would be likely to peck 
the seeds to pieces and destroy them. Thev look, 
too, not unlike tiny pebbles. 
The sea-weeds also are imitative. They mimic 
many earthly and human things: the broad green 
and red fronds are perfectly simulated ribbons; 
the numerous forms and colours of alge lie mar- 
vellously close to laces, frills, threads, nets, and 
feathers floating in the sea. What a world of imi- 
tations under the water! Here a string of beads; 
there a graceful sea-fan carelessly waving at some 
phantom lover! Beads, necklaces, jewels all dis- 
playing their ornate loveliness to any one who will 
behold! 
An interesting form of plant simulation is that 
which is found in a certain species of mistletoe. 
This plant is a native of Australia, and its leaves 
imitate so closely the leaves of the plant on which 
it is a parasite, that only a skilled botanist or nat- 
uralist can distinguish between the two. 
A similar example, equally interesting, is that of 
